Al-Ameen Eating House (Bukit Timah)

I've been wanting to review this place for some time now but just haven't come around to it. Let's just say this place is damn big, almost a mini United Nations headquarter. Its like four units of Thai, Northern Indian, Chinese(halal, of course), Malay, Indian, Indonesian food, money changer, sarabat stall, dessert stall, you get the picture.

Perhaps they need that much space to accomodate the names of their drinks. Try TEH TARIK CHINO ICE GODZILLA.

I've tried the tandoori chicken tikka, garlic and regular naans, pratas, murtabaks, palak paneer, aloo gobi and cheese prata. What I go back for are the chicken tikka and paneer. Not the regular items you associate with your neighbourhood prata shop. Throw in a naan or two and you'll be laughing, not necessarily about your health though.

Prepare for a wait during lunch, as it can be pretty crowded. I once waited almost an hour for the tikka. Maybe they slaughter upon orders. Sidetracking aside, this a nice place for supper as its not that crowded compared to other 24hr joints. Even if it is crowded, there's a whole stretch is other shops you can go to.

Ha.

This used to be a mee goreng place I used to frequent until I realised that the mee goreng was quite inconsistently done. Sometimes it was too bland, other times it was a tad too salty. In addition, unlike Al Alzar nearby, this one did not have mutton in its mee goreng. And both places charged $3 (now $3.50).

One redeeming factor about this place is that its drinks are pretty good - in terms of variety and quality. The teh peng was not too sweet, unlike some places whose drinks were designed to give you a sugar high! However, Al Alzar soon caught up in the quality of its drinks as well.

Hence, I migrated over to Al Alzar since. I also found the service at Al Alzar better.

Suffice to say, I no longer frequent this place.

If there's a food place that you have visited since young, you'll tend to give it a better rating as the food must be pretty good to have survive so long, going back to the nostalgic place is like sugar to the tongue. It just sweetens your day.

I'm an east-side boy, but somehow, most of my schools were in the west and that was how I started visiting Al-Ameen.

Circa 2008, late night project work really gets one tummy rumbling. This outlet is one of the few that's open 24 hours, long heeding the call of the government to make Singapore a cosmopolitan and virant state. A city that never sleeps so to speak. Al Ameen has also sponsored my team's soccer jersey. So just imagine, other teams who have not heard of this outlet would think that we were sponsored by a rich shiekh! heheh!

Ok, enough of stories for now. The last time when I was at Al Ameen was after my colleagues and I had finished our work at 1am. We needed food. Where else to go for midnight supper.

Al-Ameen has a very long front - the boards displaying a wide array of food that you can choose from. The front is so wide that there are two payment counters on both ends of the outlet.

Ok, you must be shouting at me, "Wattabout the food!?" Ah...good things must wait right? Ok, I shall not hold back any further.

We had nasi pattaya and nasi goreng ayam tiga rasa or chicken fried rice with three spices. Totally gastronomical! The drinks are also something to savour - teh cino, milo dinosaur, just two of the many interesting but tasty drink that you can have.

Also, this is one place you should go if you're into "star gazing". We saw Vincent Ng having a cuppa. So YES to people watching.

Update: 10 Jan 09
My colleagues and I were there on a Saturday for dinner. I ordered the Al-Ameen nasi goreng. Cost me $6, but totally not worth it. It was this unique mix of rice and crispy noodles. But the dish seemed like leftovers being mixed together. We ordered 30 sticks of satay and also had chilli stingray, both tasted quite good. The teh cino was not too bad either.

Also, service level was marked poorer. It took us more than 10 minutes before the staff was able to serve us. So for weekends, service=5.5.